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The European Commission’s Green Paper on Plastic Waste and GAIA’s response to the public consultation. The Green Paper describes the growing problem of plastic waste in Europe, regulation addressing the issue, policy options for improving management, application of the waste hierarchy to plastic waste management, etc.

Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) funding for incineration and landfills currently represents a lost opportunity to reduce pollution and help improve the welfare and standards of living of some of the poorest people in the world. Additionally, this funding incentivizes the destruction of valuable resources that would otherwise have been recovered with significant climate benefits.

Single-stream recycling is a system in which all recyclables, including newspaper, cardboard, plastic, aluminum, junk mail, etc., are placed in a single bin or cart for recycling. These recyclables are collected by a single truck and taken to a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF) to be sorted into various commodity streams for sale to markets, where it is processed into feedstock which can be used in the manufacture of new products.

1. Depending on the system, container deposit-return (CDR) systems create 11 to 38 times more jobs than curbside recycling. 2. On average, states with deposit-return systems recover roughly three times more beverage containers than non-CDR states. 3. Jobs gained from recycling far exceed any jobs lost in virgin extraction, landfilling or domestic manufacturing. 4. U.S. PET reclaimers currently operate at less than 60% capacity due to a lack of quality source materials. 5. The U.S.

Growing numbers of communities around the world are adopting Zero Waste policies, having become frustrated with the progress of governments and businesses to deal with the waste crisis. By doing so they are sending a powerful message to decision-makers and business that communities no longer want to be the final dumping ground for the outputs of the industrial system - and that cheap, easy disposal is coming to an end.

To power our world, we burn a billion tons of coal every year, leaving significant quantities of coal ash. Rather than sending this ash to landfills, some is being recycled for beneficial uses, including as an additive or key component of building products.

Despite progress in recent years countries across the European Union (EU), including the United Kingdom (UK), are continuing to dispose of significant amounts of valuable recyclable materials to landfill or incineration. This analysis examines this disposal in more depth, in an attempt to provide a reasonable estimate of the amount of different recyclable materials that is lost through landfilling or incineration.

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